


bound around your throat

by peskylilcritter



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (altho who knows which character is being studied here), Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, blood mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26749324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peskylilcritter/pseuds/peskylilcritter
Summary: In which Andy considers Nile and the impact she's had on their little family, and in the process reveals a great deal about herself.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	bound around your throat

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the line "you come from warriors" and its context, as well as the conversations ive had with quecksilvereyes about that scene.
> 
> title from proverbs. (as in, from the bible.) bc i think nile would appreciate it and andy would be exasperated.

What Nile tells Andy about her family tells Andy probably more than Nile intended, more than she knew she was saying maybe.

(What is a warrior except one who fights? Does it matter what weapons you carry? Does it matter what ground you bleed on? Does it matter if the battle can never be won?)

Watching Nile now, living with her, Andy wonders about this woman who raised her, gave her the space and the safety and the support and probably the occasional ass-kicking to grow into this wonderful young woman Andy gets to know.

(What a privilege, she thinks, to know Nile. Andy watches her laugh with Nicky and play-fight with Joe, and wants to thank the warrior who made her, the mother who nurtured her.)

It’s sometimes easy to forget that not all warriors carry blades, not all battles spill blood, not all wars take lives.

(Words and stubbornness, strength of will and the wisdom to accept help, the ugly fight for survival that costs everything and leaves no scars anyone can see. Between pennies and homework and rent and the simple awful knowledge that your child will be hurt because she inherited the color of your skin and the bloody history that brought you here.)

Nile fights with a brutal efficiency untouched by cruelty, fights with purpose and the knowledge of what is necessary, and then she comes home with them and lets Nicky correct the way she holds the knife when they cut vegetables for dinner, asks Andy about her history, her place in the world’s history and listens when Andy tells her about all the things that never made it into history books, drags Joe to museums to marvel at the beauty humans make and laughs when he makes jokes understands no one but them.

(A marvel, Andy thinks, that Nile is the first of them who already understood when it was time to lay down arms before she came to them. Of all of them, Andy thinks it was Lykon who learned quickest. Nile, it seems, learned at her mother’s knee the importance of leaving your battles at the door.)

For all her doubts, the ones she speaks of quietly like a confession, the ones she keeps to herself, the ones she shows without meaning to, there is a core of certainty in Nile, a trust in herself that Andy can only envy even as she admires it. She aches, sometimes, wondering how long it will last in the face of time and the boundlessness of human cruelty.

(She has so little left of the people that made her. Language and traditions without context, the feeling of fabric between her face and someone’s back, the safety of sleeping surrounded by her family. How often can you replace components before the thing is no longer the original?)

Nicky was right when he said that Nile needed them. Andy thinks maybe they needed her more.

**Author's Note:**

> look. im so fucking obsessed. ive been through the whole fic tag at least twice. i fucking downloaded the tumblr app for the sole purpose of being allowed to join a tog discord server. these are my emotional support characters in this difficult time yall.
> 
> and if that hasnt scared you off feel free to come talk to me here in the comments or over on tumblr where i am thepeskycritter


End file.
